What could be better than a Friday afternoon than one that heads into the weekend on a positive job note?

Employers added 203,000 jobs in November which exceeds the target of 180,000 anticipated by economists. As for the unemployment rate, well there’s reason for good cheer on that front as well. The unemployment rate dropped slightly to seven percent and the labor force participation rate increased a tiny bit to 63 percent.

The biggest jumps of employment occurred in health care, transportation/warehousing and manufacturing though experts say the spikes may be due to temporary holiday employment.

Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG Investment Research, told Forbes, “On the broad brush it is obviously a good number.” He also added that private sector payroll and hourly earnings on average have risen about two percent from year to year. Despite today’s report, he refers to this as “the two percent economy.”

We’d like to look at the glass as half full so we’ll focus on the fact numbers exceeded the estimate and hopefully this month’s numbers will end the year on a positive note!